Wicked’s Marissa Bode Calls Out Internet Trolls Using Disability as a Punchline

Wicked is one of the biggest Hollywood hits of the year, breaking box office records and dominating the cultural conversation since its release on November 22. Marissa Bode, the first person in a wheelchair to play the character of Nessarose, has been enjoying the whirlwind that comes with such a blockbuster release, attending red carpet events and having important conversations in the press about inclusivity. He also faces internet trolls who use his disability as a punchline when they joke about his character.

So Bode is using his platform to call out the ableism behind the jokes. She published a tiktok video on November 29, just a week later Wicked premiered, revealing that she has been actively deleting comments from people who joke about pushing Nessa out of her wheelchair and saying that the character “deserves” her disability.

Bode, 24, began his statement by saying that he understands why some people don’t like Nessa and clarifying that jokes about Nessarose’s personality and her fate are funny because they are based on fiction. However, Bode limits the jokes about her character’s disability and does not stay silent about it.

@marissa_edob Representation is important, but it is not the only thing that will save the disability community. I need a lot of you (non-disabled people) to do the work. To analyze and unlearn your own ableism. Listen to disabled people. Follow other disabled people besides me. Read about the disability rights movement/watch the documentary Crip Camp! I understand that no one likes to feel scolded. But true progress never comes with comfort. And that’s fine. #wicked #nessa ♬ original sound – Marissa

The fact that harmful rhetoric like this exists online is not news to the disability community. But Bode confessed that he was shaking while recording the video because he was afraid of the possible reaction to denouncing him publicly.

Bode said he hoped talking about it would prevent other wheelchair users from internalizing false and ableist comments based on ignorance.

“This is way beyond me… I just need to ignore the comments on the internet. These comments don’t exist in a vacuum,” he said, explaining that similar comments force disabled creators to go offline. “Instead of writing each other off and claiming that an experience can’t be true because you personally don’t feel that way about a joke that wouldn’t have affected your demographic. [anyway]Listen to the people or person it is affecting and how it makes them feel.

“I’m worried that a younger version of me is somewhere on the Internet and is being harmed by these comments,” she said.

He ended his message by asking many of his followers to learn a lesson from Wicked and try to listen and understand other people’s differences more before making hurtful comments online.

Bode captioned the video with a call to action for people without disabilities:

“I need a lot of you (non-disabled people) to do the work. To analyze and unlearn your own ableism,” he wrote. “Listen to disabled people. Follow other disabled people besides me. Read about the disability rights movement/watch the documentary [Crip Camp]! I understand that no one likes to feel scolded. But true progress never comes with comfort. And that’s okay.”

Bode is one of the first wheelchair users to use her public platform to expose ableism so publicly, so New Mobility reached out to Jenna Bainbridge, another actress who uses a wheelchair, to get her reaction to Bode’s message.

“My initial thought is that I am incredibly proud of Marissa for addressing this directly and so eloquently,” Bainbridge says in a statement to New Mobility. The actress, who is the first person in a wheelchair to create a role on Broadway, says her father showed her the video and asked if she had ever experienced similar online harassment. She had to tell him that unfortunately the comments were nothing new to her or other disabled artists.

“It is such a wonderful gift to the entire disability community that she is in the public spotlight and shines so brightly, and it breaks my heart that because of that spotlight she is receiving hateful, ableist backlash,” she says. “I hope she knows that we are all rooting for her and sending her love and that we are incredibly proud of how she is handling herself in these previously uncharted waters.”